RIPON, Wis. -- With Midwest Conference Tournament implications abounding Saturday, the Lawrence University softball team came up big with a pair of victories over rival Ripon College at Tracy Field.
    Lawrence won the opener 10-2 and took the nightcap 8-0 with both games ending in six innings due to the run rule.
    The victories move Lawrence into third place in the Midwest Conference standings, one game behind Lake Forest College and Illinois College and two games ahead of Grinnell College. The top four teams make the MWC Tournament. The Vikings are now 16-16 and 9-3 in the league, and Ripon falls to 9-21 overall and 6-6 in the conference.
    In the opener, Lawrence put together a six-run fourth inning and rode the pitching of starter Avery Chilson. Chilson went the distance to get the win. She allowed two runs on seven hits, struck out four and didn't walk a batter.
    Lead-off hitter Zoe Doherty went 3-for-3 with three runs scored and two runs batted in for the Vikings. Janessa Gonzalez also went 3-for-3 with a double, drove in two runs and scored a run for Lawrence. Taylor Hughes went 2-for-4, and Jordan Wallin-Swanson and Kourtney Mercer both drove in a pair of runs for the Vikings
    Lawrence took advantage of a pair of walks to score twice in the third, and the game was tied at 2-2 heading to the top of the fourth.
    An error and Gillian Guerriero's double put two runners aboard in the fourth. Mercer then doubled to score both runners for a 4-2 lead. An error allowed Adrie Villa to reach base, and Doherty singled to score both runners for a 6-2 advantage. Gonzalez followed with a double to score Doherty, and a groundout scored Gonzalez for an 8-2 lead.
    The Vikings tacked on two more runs in the sixth on an RBI double from Gonzalez and Hughes' run-scoring single. 
    Lawrence got another stellar pitching performance in the second game. Georgia Sedlack tossed a five-hit shutout for her eighth victory of the season. Sedlack struck out six and walked one.
    Gonzalez went 3-for-4 and drove in a run and Mattigan Haller was 3-for-4 and scored twice. Mercer went 2-for-3 and drove in two runs, and Guerriero also drove in a pair of runs. 
    The Vikings broke a scoreless second game open with five runs in the third. Villa singled and Doherty followed with a triple to give Lawrence a 1-0 lead. Gonzalez followed with a single for a 2-0 lead, and Guerriero's infield single scored another run for a 3-0 edge. Mercer finished the rally with a two-run single, and the Vikings led 5-0.
    The Vikings took advantage of two Ripon errors and scored twice in the fifth on just one hit, a Mercer single, for a 7-0 lead. Lawrence tacked on a run in the sixth on Kylan Arndt's run-scoring single for the final margin.
    This also marks the first doubleheader sweep of Ripon since the 2021 season.